Beginning in May, Harris County voters will be allowed to cast ballots at any polling place in the county, rather than their assigned precincts under a system that gained state approval Thursday.

Texas Secretary of State David Whitley on Thursday accepted Harris County’s application to participate in the state’s countywide polling program, giving County Clerk Diane Trautman the green light to put it in place for the May 4 school board elections.

“The voters of Harris County have made it clear that a countywide polling place program would have a positive impact on elections and I am confident that the transition to a countywide polling place program will be successful,” Trautman said in a statement.

Harris County, with more than 2 million registered voters, will be the largest county in the country to implement the program, according to Trautman’s office.

During previous elections, Harris County residents could cast ballots at any one of dozens of locations during early voting, but were required to visit polls in their home precincts on Election Day.

In the November midterms, Harris County operated 46 early voting locations, each with far more poll workers and voting machines than the hundreds of traditional Election Day precinct polling sites.

Proponents of the countywide system tout it as a way to boost voter participation. Supporters also say it eventually could cut election costs because counties can replace smaller precinct sites with larger voting centers. More than 50 Texas counties successfully have implemented the countywide program, including neighboring Fort Bend and Brazoria, and some have seen an uptick in voter participation.

Trautman has said she would start by using the county’s 46 early voting locations as Election Day voting centers, in addition to traditional precinct polling sites, which she would not close before first seeking the approval of residents.

Jay Aiyer, a Texas Southern University political analyst, said Trautman should wait at least a few election cycles before removing any precinct sites to avoid disenfranchising voters.

“Harris County is basically a state,” Aiyer said. “So, what we’re talking about is a pretty fundamental change of an electoral process for an area, or at least a population base, that’s larger than 25 states.”

Some concerns, Aiyer said, include the vast length of Harris County’s ballot and the lack of straight-ticket voting in 2020, the first time Texas voters will be without that option. The change likely will create longer lines at the polls, Aiyer noted.

Harris County Republican Party Chair Paul Simpson decried the move, contending that Trautman, “in a rush to revamp Harris County voting,” is using unreliable technology that would actually depress turnout.

“Trumpeting her new system as voter-approved, Ms. Trautman, in fact, hand-picked groups to support her voting center scheme despite the risk it poses to all Harris County voters,” Simpson said in a statement. “Her unproven voting center scheme might work in a smaller county. But in the large and diverse community of Harris County, it risks vote dilution and discouraging, confusing, and disenfranchising countless voters on election day."

Lubbock County became the first in Texas to run a countywide polling operation in 2006, under what was then a pilot program enacted by the Legislature. Since then, state lawmakers have made the program permanent, and Travis County, with about 788,000 registered voters as of the November midterms, is the largest Texas county to use the voting centers.

Trautman deliberately sought state approval before the May elections so she could roll out the program during a low-turnout election, instead of during the November 2019 city election or 2020 presidential election when turnout runs much higher. Harris County must secure approval from the secretary of state’s office after the May 4 election to continue using the countywide polling program.

Still, Simpson said he worried that voting centers would be unable to communicate electronically on Election Day to ensure no one votes more than once. County officials have said otherwise, and the state’s elections director, Keith Ingram, wrote in a letter to County Judge Lina Hidalgo Thursday that documentation provided by the county reflects that its polling devices can update the master voter database even upon losing cellular connection.

Former Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart, a Republican whom Trautman defeated, said during the campaign he was open to countywide polling sites. The option is only available, Stanart said, because the county began using electronic poll books, or modified iPads, that communicate with each other to prevent people from voting more than once.

In a statement, Hidalgo called the move “a huge win for voters across Harris County.”

“I’m committed to working with our county clerk to help implement a successful program,” she said. “Instituting voting centers will increase participation, making our democracy more inclusive and stronger.”

Jasper covers City Hall, local politics and breaking news for the Houston Chronicle through the Hearst Journalism Fellowship program. He previously covered Bexar County and local politics for the San Antonio Express-News. Jasper graduated from Northwestern University in 2017 with degrees in journalism and political science. He has interned for the Tampa Bay Times, Washington Post and Fortune magazine.